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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401524">a prelude in c minor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_penstrokes/pseuds/indigo_penstrokes'>indigo_penstrokes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>An American in Paris - Gershwin/Lucas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Music, Sharing a Bed, a little sad but mostly soft, its very soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:15:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,005</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401524</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_penstrokes/pseuds/indigo_penstrokes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is a composer, it's what he does. So why can't he finish the damn ballet?<br/>The answer lies in the feelings he has for one Henri Baurel</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Henri Baurel/Adam Hochberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a prelude in c minor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>my first published fic in months and it's for these sad gay idiots, who knew</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Adam has never considered himself a romantic. Maybe there was a time before the war, before bullet spray ruined his leg, when he could have been. But if that time had ever existed it's long since passed, and words like jaded and morose are better suited tom him than romantic. He's bitter, like black coffee; strong and often an acquired taste. His music is the same way. All dark, booming triads and sullen minor keys that drag even the most cheerful lyrics into the dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, that is before a certain Frenchman inevitably tips the entire piece on its head and runs away with the melody, making everyone in their tiny cafe get up and dance. It’s infuriating really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri Baurel is everything Adam Hochberg is not. Maybe that's why they've been drawn together like magnets; so much the other's opposite that they can't help but fall into orbit around each other. Henri is yellow. Those warm spring days that promise nothing but good things ahead. The light at the end of the tunnel when you know it isn't the train. The dawn that breaks after a cool blue twilight and an even colder night. In short Henri is an optimist and Adam a nihilist. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Henri is a constant in his life. A cacophony of dreams and aspirations and many other annoyances, but there all the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s strange to think it wasn’t always that way. That there was a time in both their lives where Henri existed without Adam’s music, and Adam existed without writing lyrics for Henri. In fact it’s nearly impossible to remember the time he spent in Paris without Henri there with him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had all started when Adam had been in the city of lights for a handful of weeks, playing his mournful music out of the cafe that he essentially ran, and then the whirlwind that is Henri Baurel slammed into his life. Suit perfect and smile bright when he asked for a song. A song that Adam still has laying around in his apartment. Who knew that, that one song would turn into dozens more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s an awfully sentimental thing to be thinking about when he still has a ballet to finish. A ballet that is doing its best to be just as stubborn and uncooperative as its composer is. He’s been spending day and night at any piano he can get his hands on. The one in the cafe, the one at the ballet studio, even the small out of tune upright that sits in his tiny shoebox of an apartment. But still he can’t get the orchestrations to work themselves out. For the first time in a very long time the music is fighting him, almost as if it doesn’t want to be written the way he wants it. Which shouldn’t be happening, he has one of the best muses he’s ever had the luck of finding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lise Dassin is quite literally music put into motion, lines and lines of melody given a physical body. She’s made from the same tough stuff as Adam, but rather than be cracked and broken by the war, it’s worn her down into something smooth and quiet. And if he can just get this music right then she’ll shine up there like the best of them. It’s what she deserves. And maybe he’s a little in love with her, but it’s the sort of love that keeps you staring up at the stars. The sort people have for their favorite song. It’s a comfort and familiarity that he’s been without for so long. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he has it now and yet he still can’t finish the damn ballet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It needs to be light, but all he seems capable of is heavy, sullen darkness even after his epiphany in Montparnasse. He slams down another discordant series of notes before crossing out the melody that won’t leave his head. It’s the wrong thing for the ballet. It speaks of heartache when the ballet needs love, a happy fucking ending after everything they’ve all been through. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The city of Paris needs to smile.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>(He ignores that those words float through his head in a voice that’s distinctly Henri’s)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam knows the composition needs to be happy, but all he can see is the look on Henri’s face after that night at the club. How the one thing that had brought him joy was now tainted, even if his family tried to be supportive. It turns his stomach to think that all the times he made fun of Henri’s grandiose dreams when, in fact, he had always hoped that they would come true, that Henri would get to live on the biggest stage in all of New York City.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything always seems to circle back to Henri. Henri with his bright eyes and smiles even after everything that’s happened. Henri with his almost endless optimism. Henri with his love for performing, and the secret smiles he shares with Adam. Henri who makes Adam into a sad facsimile of a romantic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam knocks back another mouthful of bourbon, shaking away the lingering thoughts of Henri as he tries to finish his impossible task. The lamp he has near the piano is starting to strain his eyes, and the staves he’s filled with incorrect notes are starting to blur together. But he keeps trying, this ballet is going to be finished even if he has to drag it kicking and screaming from the depths of his brain. He has to. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He has to.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Except the music he needs is stuck behind those melancholy lines that will not leave him alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays it again, and again, and again. Lyrics whispering in the very back of his thoughts. But he only ever writes lyrics for Henri, and the ones forming on his tongue are much too sullen for Henri.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So rather Adam finds himself mumbling those desolate words in a vain hope that maybe, just maybe, it will be enough to get them out of his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“They’re writing songs of love, but not for me. A lucky star’s above, but not for me” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The piano line is too heavy and his voice isn’t the strongest as the bitter words leave his mouth, but with each one some of that weight in his chest lifts just enough that he can breathe a little easier. But it’s not enough because he feels something else threatening to push past the walls he’s built up around his emotions. So he keeps playing but just a bit louder.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“With love to lead the way I found more skies of gray, than any Russian play could guarantee.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Love is what got him into this mess to begin with. His love for Lise. His love for music. His love for Henri. Because that’s what this feeling is. Love. True romantic love. And like every other time it’s come knocking on his door it’s just going to leave him bruised and beaten and with a life full of grey skies. It’s what he’s used to, it’s what he’s been living after all with only spots of sun to tide him over.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I was a fool to fall, and get that way. Hi-ho, alas I can't dismiss the idea of his kiss.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh what a fool indeed. Sure he’ll keep writing songs for Henri and hoarding every sunshine bright smile he gets in return. He almost laughs as he slams down chord after chord into the already beaten keys. If only he could outlast these feelings. But now that they’re free he doesn’t think that he could live with himself should they leave. Loving Henri Baurel is simply in his nature. And the more he thinks, the more he looks at everything in his heart, Adam thinks that maybe he was always in love with the insufferable bastard. It wouldn’t come as any surprise if it’s true, after all he’s only ever written love songs for Henri, no one else. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I guess he's not for me. I guess he's not for me.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam very nearly stops right there. Everything </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurts. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It hurts in ways he’s never really let himself feel before. It’s all spilling out from the cracks he’s made in the walls, the only hope of making it stop is to keep playing until it's all out. Let it run dry. But it hurts so much and he just wants to sleep. He wants to finish the ballet. He wants </span>
  <em>
    <span>Henri.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He wants and wants and wants and entertaining the idea that he might just be wanted back is even more painful. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“It all began so well, but what an end. This is the time a fella, needs a friend.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His thoughts turn to Milo. How she’s so much like Henri, bright and loud and so full of life, but somehow so completely different. She’s even in the same boat as Henri. Cast aside in favor of Lise, but still helping to push the ballet forward. Adam thinks that maybe if he looked closer he would be able to see the cracks in Milo’s flawless facade, and beyond that to the girl who simply wants to be loved. Maybe one day he’ll talk to her about it, hell they might even make decent friends if Adam can deal with more than one upper class socialite in his life at a time. He shakes the idea away.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“When every happy plot ends in a marriage knot,”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He can feel the crescendo all the way down to his bones, and he can’t quite bring himself to care that it’s pushing two in the morning as he all but belts that last word, letting it hold and ring through the apartment. Distantly he hears a floorboard creak in the hallway between the front door and the cafe, and his volume drops to nearly nothing but the lyrics don’t stop. He doesn’t think they could even if he wanted them to at this point.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“But there’s no knot for me.”</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>His hands lift from the keys, their last notes ringing faintly through the small space. He’s so </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired.</span>
  </em>
  <span> His throat hurts a bit after releasing the pure, unadulterated feelings of one Adam Hochberg. But he feels lighter in a way, but also empty and drained. What he needs is another drink, or maybe another three, and that should loosen up the melodies he needs to finish the ballet. If it doesn’t he might as well just fall into bed, deadlines be damned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to reach for the bottle of liquor on the floor, and standing there in the doorway is Henri, warm smiling Henri, except now he looks close to tears. He has a hand over his mouth and his brows are pinched together, it’s a fruitless attempt to stop the tears welling up in his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a look that absolutely does not belong on the face of Henri Baurel. And Adam desperately wants to make it go away but he doesn’t know how. He’s the one that put it there to begin with, that stupid fucking song.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Henri…” he tries, but it falls flat as his throat chokes on the word. So he tries again. “How much of that did you hear?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Enough I think.” Henri crosses his arms carefully, gaze still fixed on Adam. There’s something about that look that makes Adam’s heart clench.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well this is fucking awkward,” Adam says derisively before letting out a nervous laugh and pulling his gaze away from Henri. He ignores how his hands shake as he pours another glass of bourbon and downs it in one quick motion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would not say that.” Henri is still hovering in the doorway, which is also wrong because Henri never hovers anywhere. He’s always moving, whether it be dancing or just pacing around as he reads Adam’s latest song. He’s never this still and it’s tearing Adam up inside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t have to, I did. Now would you please stop lurking by my door and just get whatever it is you came here for so I can go back to writing?” He waves a hand before collecting the scattered sheets of the ballet, though he hardly believes he’ll be able to get anything done with Henri here. Not after that damning confession of a song.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri makes a spluttering sound before he steps fully into the apartment. Adam doesn’t have to look to know that Henri’s shed his coat and has draped it over the back of one of the two kitchen chairs. Ever a creature of habit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was not </span>
  <em>
    <span>lurking,</span>
  </em>
  <span> thank you very much,” Henri says as he pulls the other chair over to the piano bench, just on the fringes of Adam’s vision as he stares at the ivory keys before him. He also notes that the usual mirth is missing from Henri’s rebuke, but he doesn’t look over. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>look over. If he does what’s left of his walls might just come crumbling down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you here Henri?” Adam is so tired. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri sighs. “Would you believe me if I said I came here for you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam wouldn’t, not really. If he did, again he might just spill everything that he’s kept locked away from himself. But there’s no other explanation is there? Why else would Henri be coming by in the dead of night if not to see Adam. They both know Adam has the ballet to finish, and any songs would be there to rehearse in the morning. So Adam just sits there, hands barely resting on the keys as Henri’s gaze rests on his shoulders, not saying a word. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luckily he doesn’t need to because Henri speaks up again. “That song, did you mean all of it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam knows he’s talking about if he really loves him. And he does, like he’s loved no one else before. How could he not? Because even for all of his griping and complaints Henri is one of the few truly good things he has in life. Henri who’s seen just how shit the world can be and yet still chooses to bring light and joy and </span>
  <em>
    <span>warmth </span>
  </em>
  <span>into that same world. Henri who has every right to be just as jaded and bitter as Adam, but who is strong enough to choose happiness instead. Henri who might just love him right back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Henri…” Adam finally turns to Henri and it’s less like walls collapsing than it’s like the sun breaking over the horizon in all its gloriously romantic bullshit. “Yes, I meant it. I love you, you annoying prick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The smile that creeps across Henri’s face then is both blinding and relieved, if not maybe a little self satisfied too. That smile alone is worth every bit of ribbing that’s going to come from this because Adam would burn down cities just to see Henri smile. He’s so caught up in that smile that he almost doesn’t notice when Henri reaches out to cup his cheek. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this alright?” He swipes a thumb across Adam’s cheekbone, and he’s looking at him with such fondness that surely this can’t be happening. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So all Adam can do is roll his eyes because, “Of course it’s okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t humoring me.” Henri leans closer, intention written in every line of his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Adam, ever one for putting a foot in his mouth, snorts, “I may do a lot of dumb things, but I never humor you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri huffs out a laugh, “Of course you don’t.” And he closes the last few inches between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then they’re kissing because that’s what all of this has lead up to. Henri’s hand warm and solid holding his face, and his own resting carefully against the soft material of Henri’s shirt just above his heart. The steady tempo beating just below his palm. Adam could compose symphonies to that beat, with flying runs that mirror the soaring feeling in his chest. It's so easy to live and breathe music with Henri, especially like this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every point of contact between them feels like a trumpet's fanfare. Every breath a swell of strings. Melodies are fighting for his attention, but all he can focus on is Henri. It's all he wants to focus on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inevitably they pull away, both flushed and grinning. Henri's now seated fully on the bench next to Adam, an arm looped carefully around his waist. Adam moves his hands from Henri's chest so they're now linked behind his neck. The position has them pressed so close to one another that it's hard to imagine either of them choosing to move apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Stay." The word falls from Adam's lips before he can even think about it. Then again, softer, into Henri’s shoulder. </span>
  <em>
    <span>"Stay."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Like this everything is warm and </span>
  <em>
    <span>safe, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it’s a feeling Adam desperately wants to hold onto. He’s fought enough, surely he deserves to have this little bit of happiness. Even if it turns out to be just a dream. God he hopes this isn’t a dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he can fall down that rabbit hole any further Henri presses a feather light kiss to the side of his head. “Of course I’ll stay. For as long as you will have me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lise won’t be too happy about that.” Because Adam is incapable of not shooting himself in the foot at every given opportunity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri’s hold tightens ever so slightly before he quietly admits, “I’m not going to marry her. She deserves someone who can love her the way she loves them.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam lifts his head, surely this isn’t real. “Have you told her?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And in true Henri fashion he opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish before settling for a small shake of his head. “I will tell her after the ballet. I can’t burden her further before then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How are you so damn </span>
  <em>
    <span>good </span>
  </em>
  <span>all the time?” Adam pulls him in for another kiss because what else is he supposed to say to that? Henri basically told him that he’s breaking the engagement to be with Adam. Adam of all people! </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri chuckles and Adam wants to bottle the sound, he always has. It would be the perfect thing to write into a score, perfectly musical. Henri's lips twist upwards as he says, “Maybe because you are so bitter, hm?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Actually, scratch that, it’s the worst sound in the world and he hates Henri. He pushes his face away, but he still leaves the hand there on Henri’s cheek. “You’re an ass, you know that?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, but you love me.” Henri, ever the picture of a romantic Frenchman, turns his face so he can press his lips to the inside of Adam’s wrist before a saccharine grin overtakes his face once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really do, don’t I?” Adam is trying his best to keep up the facade of annoyance, but it’s very nearly impossible with Henri looking at him like he’s the one who hung the stars in the sky outside. It makes his thoughts turn syrupy and slow, happy to just bask in the warmth Henri so willingly provides. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you too, in case that wasn’t obvious.” Henri says it with a wry smile and that’s all the confirmation Adam needs. To know that yes, Henri really does feel the same, it quiets a restless part of his mind. It makes him feel disgustingly happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam goes to snipe back about how no shit it was obvious, but a yawn cuts him off before he can even form the words. Yet another reminder that the hour is approaching morning and that he should have been asleep ages ago. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tired?” Henri quips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very. Positive emotions tend to have that effect on me, it ruins my brooding musician appeal.” Adam fights off another yawn. He wants nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep through the weekend with Henri.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri laughs quietly before pressing a kiss to Adam’s forehead. It's a tender gesture that says he knows just how dramatic Adam's being and he loves him anyway. So maybe that's why he follows it up with, "Come to bed with me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri’s eyebrows shoot up as a grin that’s really more of a smirk quirks his lips. “How forward of you Monsieur Hochberg.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. Though,” Adam kisses the spot just below Henri's ear, “I think we'll have more than enough time to do all that later. But right now I'm exhausted and I will fall asleep right here if you don't let me up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri tuts softly before extracting himself from the piano bench and Adam’s arms. In the end they manage to untangle themselves enough to shed their outer layer of clothing before squeezing into Adam’s double bed. Sure it’s big enough for Adam on his own, but trying to fit another grown man into it proves a bit of a challenge. But they make it work; Henri with an arm slung around Adam’s waist while the other is pillowed under his head, and Adam tucked carefully into the space beside him. Soon after they’re both settled Henri’s breaths even out and Adam is lulled into what is possibly the best night’s sleep of his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dreams of ballets and sunny days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam is an early riser, always has been, so when the dawn comes peaking through his nearly transparent curtains he’s awake and ready to start his day. To say he enjoys mornings would be incorrect, he simply needs the hours waking up early affords him. And right now he not only has time to finish the ballet, he has inspiration for it. Inspiration that is current sitting in the form that’s stretched out across his bed with the sheets messed up around them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam does his best to not disturb Henri as he gets up, a feat easier than expected as seeing that Henri sleeps like the dead, not even the sun shining on his face disrupts his slow, steady breathing. He would laugh if he wasn’t struck breathless by the sight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri Baurel is asleep in his bed. Henri Baurel had kissed him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Henri Baurel loves him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>That alone is something that is going to take some getting used to. But right now, as he sits at the piano scribbling away at page after page of the ballet, it’s easy to hold close and cherish in the golden morning light. It’s easy to pen line after line of shining melody and the harmony it deserves. All while taking as many glaces at Henri as he wants. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the hour he sits there and writes and plays gentle chords on the piano everything seems to fall neatly into place. And Henri is at the center of it yet again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri who has now shifted into the space Adam left; his dark hair mussed in a way it never is when he’s awake, face relaxed with the barest traces of a smile on his lips. The light streaming in from the barely curtained window makes it as if he were pulled straight from a painting, all smooth lines cast in gold. He’s gorgeous and Adam is completely and irrevocably in love with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only thing that makes it better is when Henri slowly wakes up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adam almost misses it, too busy playing a gentle piano line that is nothing but </span>
  <em>
    <span>Henri</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But he catches it in the way Henri’s breathing changes ever so slightly, not quite as steady, a change in tempo. Then he blinks as he sits up, eyes not quite focused as he squints against the sunlight, but he looks to Adam and Adam is breathless again. No one should be able to look as good after just waking up as Henri does, but he’s got the doe eyes and messy hair, and he’s still not wearing a shirt. And Adam is so far gone, but that’s alright, because Henri loves him just as much. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henri loves him and that’s enough.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>find me on tumblr @ad-astra-de-luna</p></blockquote></div></div>
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